


hexed

by kirinokisu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, frequent mentions of Kuroo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 20:18:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2554244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirinokisu/pseuds/kirinokisu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I think I'm cursed, Bokuto says after practice. And Akaashi is not at all surprised that he ropes himself into dealing with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hexed

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally planned as one of the drabbles for bokuaka week, but university laughed in my face and finished me off with a list of essays to be written. I retaliated by allowing things to escalate into a full fic, days late.
> 
> Many, many thanks to Puwacchi, for everything.
> 
> Basically, I'm in bokuaka hell (it's sappy, very much so) and I can't be saved anymore (I don't care, I think).

\- - -

“Akaashi, I think I'm cursed,” Bokuto says after morning practice.

Perfectly calm, Akaashi picks up his towel from the bench, wipes away the droplets of water off his face. “Bokuto-san, just because you crashed into the ball cart,” he pauses, “ _twice_ , doesn't mean that you are cursed.”

Bokuto's eyes dart; left and right, left and right. Face childishly conspirational, he leans closer. “It's not just that.” He leans closer still and Akaashi has problems putting his most unimpressed face on. “This morning, we run out of Cheerios.” Akaashi clearly misses something spectacularly sensational because Bokuto huffs, _“Cheerios,_ Akaashi! I had to eat _Froot_ _Loops_ for breakfast.”

Akaashi takes a step away and turns to his locker. “I'm sure with enough time you will get over this traumatic ordeal, Bokuto-san,” he says as he finishes dressing.

Patiently, he waits for Bokuto to do the same. But Bokuto is far too deep in his own dramatic distress, arms flailing as he continues, “And then, on my way to school, a little girl crashed into me on her bike.” He doesn't give Akaashi a chance to ask if he's okay, so Akaashi takes a breath because Bokuto-san is here and he at least seems alright, doesn't he. “It was so pink I should have noticed it!” Bokuto nods solemnly to himself, “It must be some sort of curse.” He nods again and, apparently convinced, goes back to his clothes.

Akaashi slings his bag over his shoulder and waits. Months of practise, months of _learning_ , tell him there's more to come. He takes note of the way Bokuto is fumbling with his belt and the spooked glint in his eyes—they're still darting. How his shoulders slump as he buttons up his school shirt. The sigh as he closes his locker without a cheery bang.

“I missed your toss,” Bokuto says finally, much the same way he says not to toss him. “When Saru scored the match point, it wasn't because I gave him the chance to. It's because I couldn't do it myself.” He looks almost ashamed admitting it and Akaashi doesn't need to think hard about his next course of action.

“Bokuto-san,” he says flatly, “what makes you think that toss was for you?”

Bokuto looks so puzzled that Akaashi momentarily feels sorry for the tiny lie. The thought disappears when Bokuto explodes with motion and sound all at once. “Hey hey hey, Akaashi, it's not nice making fun of your seniors!” He throws an arm around Akaashi's shoulder, forgets all about personal space and says much too close to Akaashi's face, “See, I'm the ace,” he points an accusing finger at Akaashi, “and you are the setter. Match point is like, the coolest thing in the entire match! Of course you would be tossing it to me.” He looks at Akaashi expectantly, as if still confused about failing to spike one single toss.

“So there is a curse, because that is the only reasonable explanation.”

Bokuto nods enthusiastically. “But I'm gonna beat it, Akaashi!” He pumps a fist in the air and the force of it rocks Akaashi. He stares; Bokuto smiles, too earnest. “So don't worry, okay? I'm gonna make it all okay. More than okay!” Bokuto's face lightens up with a sudden realisation and his brows do a ridiculous wiggle between proud and suggestive. “Hey hey, I must be getting better at this whole reading Akaashi thing! Good job, Koutaro, good job. One day you'll get there.”

It's too early in the day for Bokuto to make all sorts of interesting things happen in Akaashi's stomach, so he weasels out of the embrace and says, “Last time you were getting better at reading me, you ended up on your knees in front of my mother, begging forgiveness on our doorstep because you thought I was mad at you.”

“How was I supposed to know Akaashi-san was home,” Bokuto pouts immediately in response, but Akaashi feels everything shift slowly back to normal.

\- - -

Bokuto is still—or is it again?—sulking by lunchtime. He is also sporting a bruise of worrisome proportions.

“What happened?” Akaashi asks, sitting down at his usual place at the lunch-table in the third year classroom. Across him, Konoha snickers; after almost two years of knowing each other, it doesn't warrant any particularly questioning looks on Akaashi's part anymore.

“I tripped,” Bokuto mumbles into his melon bread, and if Akaashi wasn't sitting so close to him, he would've missed it.

“Run into the wall, more like,” Konoha supplies helpfully. “Down the stairs and straight into it, just inches away from the door opening. It was all very epic.”

“Shut up, Konoha! It wasn't my fault!”

“Of course, Bokuto, it was the wall's fault, for being there.”

“It was the cu—” Bokuto stops short, bites viciously into his bread.

Akaashi reaches for Bokuto's cheek and prods it gently. It looks swollen and red, but at least Bokuto doesn't wince so it must not be that bad. The look he gives Akaashi is so sincere and hopeful, _trusting_ , that Akaashi's fingers linger just a little too long, feeling the ghost touch of Bokuto's breath on them. Akaashi's own breath hitches and he finally drops his hand.

“At least his head is not cracked open,” he says as he reaches for his lunchbox.

“Even if there isn't much to damage there,” Konoha agrees.

The sound of incoming text message distracts Bokuto from responding and prevents potential food war followed by no doubt horrific consequences including but not limited to attempts at sword fighting with chopsticks.

“Oh, it's Kuroo.” Bokuto looks over the text with a smile, then a frown, and then his face colours such an interesting shade of red that even Akaashi is not sure what it could possibly contain.

It doesn't escape anyone's attention.

There are many possibilities to go from here, some including less hassle than others, but a quick look at the clock on the wall reminds Akaashi that lunch break is about to end and he has no intention of being late to his math class.

“Bokuto-san, I hope the forms for today's meeting are filled.”

All it takes is less than a minute. Stuck between not wanting to disappoint yet having no clue about a meeting let alone forms, Bokuto can only belatedly watch as Konoha snatches the phone out of his palm. He is so uncharacteristically slow in his perplexity that Washio pins his forearms against the table without a hitch, preventing further movement. It's not enough to hold Bokuto for long, of course, but the time it takes to struggle free is enough for Konoha to skim through the incriminating message.

After a moment of killing suspense, he looks up from the screen, incredulous. “A curse?”

Angrily, Bokuto takes the phone back and shoves it into his bag, dropping the device at least once in the process. He is not allowed to weasel his way out of this anyway.

Seeing things as hopelessly as they are, Bokuto, at first unwilling, launches into a story of being cursed and all the hardships he had to endure that day. He explains in great detail how his literature teacher made him read the homework out loud and how the vending machine was out of milk. By the end of his tragic tale, he is so into it that he forgets all about his food. Akaashi wonders briefly if he's doing it on purpose, in hopes of getting saved by the bell, if they will never discover the reason Bokuto is doing a very poor job at being inconspicuous in avoiding Akaashi's eyes every time the word 'curse' is mentioned. He discards the idea with one look at Bokuto and Komi going on a tangential complaint about how disappointing current bread choices in the cafeteria are.

Konoha, on the other hand, is suspiciously silent. And has no problem looking at both Akaashi and Bokuto in turns. His smile gains a tint of slyness that does not promise anything good, “And so Kuroo thinks—”

“Kuroo,” Bokuto interrupts frantically, “is being Kuroo!” He glances at Akaashi, a bit dazed, blushes when he catches Akaashi looking back, and looks away. “He's just messing with me again, okay?!”

Sarukui mutters something under his breath at the mention of Nekoma's captain and although Akaashi can't make out the words, it is hard to disagree with his resigned expression. He almost thinks he doesn't want to know what it is this time, almost.

“He's not wrong, you know,” Konoha says. He laughs himself silly when Bokuto's cheeks become even redder than before.

The bell, however, prevents any further interrogation.

But as he walks down the stairs to his classroom, Akaashi wonders still why Bokuto looked like he was pondering a choice between life and death, brows furrowed in concentration.

Wonders why he didn't confine in Akaashi.

And why it feels so strange.

\- - -

Three classes filled with desperate text messages from Bokuto, a spectacular crash into a third-year girl carrying a stack of documents, and about a dozen failed spikes later, Akaashi has to remind himself that curses are not real.

And that Bokuto not begging to stay late for extra practice is not unnatural.

“Will you guys close up?” Sarukui's head pops in the doorframe of the locker room and disappears just as abruptly with a nod from Akaashi. The door closes with a loud bang after him. Silence falls over the empty space around them.

And Bokuto still does not ask to stay late with him.

He is sitting on the bench, half-empty bottle of Gatorade next to him. Akaashi makes a face; too sweet.

There is no sign of life in him, so Akaashi leaves him be. He puts on his normal clothes, folds the training gear neatly. He even has time to properly towel-dry his hair before his routine is interrupted by a frustrated curse. Somehow, Akaashi knows the Gatorade was spilled even before he turns to access the damage.

Bokuto is glaring at the bright red puddle spreading at his feet. One of the pant legs of his shorts is still on, bunched at the ankle. The other is already on the floor, stained by the drink. Akaashi senses a disaster coming.

“Bokuto-san, I don't think it will disappear no matter how much you intimidate it.”

“But I have to try, don't I?”

“I'll tell you if it starts shrinking in fear, then.”

Bokuto's mouth quirks in a momentary smile at that. He glares a while longer, but deflates when nothing happens.

Akaashi goes straight for the bottle instead and crouches to pick it up from the floor, saving whatever measly contents there still are at the bottom. When he comes back up, he and Bokuto are standing much closer than he thought.

Bokuto must be feeling it too, because his voice comes out a little breathless when he says, “Akaashi?”

It sounds strangely intimate when it's just the two of them, with Bokuto looking straight into Akaashi's eyes. Akaashi's heart is beating so loud surely, surely Bokuto-san must hear. And he wonders is this is it, the moment Bokuto always talks about.

Bokuto takes one last step toward Akaashi. His legs tangle up in his own shorts, he loses his balance and tumbles forward. His head smacks straight into Akaashi's shoulder, knocking the breath out of them both. They avoid falling only because of Akaashi's instincts, his arms wrapping around Bokuto and steadying him.

“Sorry,” Bokuto whispers against Akaashi's shoulder. He doesn't move away.

Akaashi's shoulder throbs in dull pain, but he doesn't move either. He looks up at the white ceiling of the locker room, the perfect row of bright lightbulbs, thinks how complicated his life has become since joining volleyball team in high school. How he strangely doesn't mind it.

“Bokuto-san, I feel like eating ice cream.”

\- - -

The sun is still high when they step outside. It spills on the pavement in warm light and golden hues, colouring everything it touches. Bokuto is chattering about the new ice cream parlour he discovered on one of his weekend adventures with Kuroo. It's supposedly close and Akaashi decides against zipping up his jacket. Then again, Bokuto's sense of close is vastly different from Akaashi's own.

They don't make it even past the school yard when the strap of Bokuto's bag snaps broken.

Akashi sighs and crouches down to pick up the things spilled; pens and pencils, suspiciously few notebooks and a volleyball magazine. He stops when Bokuto does not join him. He looks up, and something heavy lurches in his chest.

"What if it never goes away," Bokuto says lowly, staring straight ahead, at nothing in particular. "What if I'm cursed forever?"

The sarcasm dies in Akaashi's throat.

Bokuto looks lost, even though they are right in front of the school gates that they pass every day, multiple times. The same wooden benches lined along the paved road, the same trimmed trees basking in the sun, even the same rowdy people sharing the after school freedom. From Akaashi's point on the ground, it is Bokuto who doesn't fit in the picture perfect scenery.

Akashi has seen him down before, of course, be it from a broken pencil or a lost game. But there is something different here. Something like a child being frustrated with a world they can't control. Something like giving up.

“We don't need it,” Akaashi realises.

“Need what?”

“A moment,” Akaashi says as he jerks Bokuto down by his wrists, then kisses him.

Bokuto's lips are sticky and soft, and Akaashi has no idea what he's doing. But after a scary moment of motionlessness, Bokuto's mouth begins to move tentatively too, and it feels nice, and a little bit weird, so Akaashi figures they're at least on the right track.

When they pull away, just barely, he can still taste the tangy sweetness of Gatorade on his tongue.

“That...” Bokuto swallows visibly, swallows again. “That was a kiss, right,” he whispers against Akaashi's lips. “Kuroo said curses can only be broken with a true love kiss. Today, at lunch, he texted me.”

Akaashi gives him a look. “ _Kuroo_ told you.”

Bokuto grins sheepishly and nuzzles Akaashi's cheek with his nose. It feels warm and ticklish. “Yeah, that's why I think we should do it again, you know, to make sure it works.”

Akaashi can't find it in him to protest.

\- - -

They still go for ice cream; later, when the heat of the late summer afternoon is in full blast and sweat beads above Bokuto's upper lip.

Akaashi is not surprised when Bokuto drops the giant liquorice cone on the pavement not two bites in. He runs the possibilities of sulky Bokuto in his head, weights his love for vanilla ice cream versus his love for Bokuto and even considers going back to the parlour. But Bokuto takes Akaashi's hand in his own and says solemnly, “Hey hey hey, Akaashi, I think the magic is wearing off. Let's kiss again.”

 


End file.
